Science-based business strategies are the best kind, and I enjoy both creating and sharing them. That led me to write Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing (Wiley, 2011) as well as my blog Neuromarketing. My new book (Summer, 2015) will be The Persuasion Slide. I'm all about practical applications, not theory. I’m the founder of Dooley Direct, a marketing consultancy, and I co-founded College Confidential, the leading college-bound website. That business was acquired by Hobsons, a unit of UK-based DMGT, where I served as VP Digital Marketing and continue in a consulting role. I spent years in direct marketing as the co-founder of a successful catalog firm, and before that directed corporate planning for a Fortune 1000 company. You can learn more about me and my speaking at RogerDooley.com. Follow me on Twitter at @rogerdooley.

What Your 'About Us' Page Is Missing

Just about every business website has an “About Us” page or section, but most of these are missing a key ingredient that will help turn visitors into customers.

Last week, I spoke at the big web marketing conference Pubcon, and a highlight of the event was hearing persuasion expert Robert Cialdini speak. Cialdini has been a big influence (no pun intended) on my own writing, and it was great to hear him in person. He tends to stick to the broad principles of influence and persuasion rather than specific marketing tactics, but he did bring up the ubiquitous “About Us” page in his speech.

Like Me, Buy from Me One of Cialdini’s major elements of persuasion is liking. If I find you likable, I’m more likely to do business with you. Similarity boosts liking. If we seem to be members of the same group or have commonalities, it’s even easier to like you. So, how, on a static website, do you get people to like you?

Include Some “About ME” Cialdini suggests using the About Us page to become more likable by including individual information and personal interests. As just one illustration, he suggested listing your three favorite “driveway songs” – those songs that keep you in your parked car until they are over. Irrelevant to business, but humanizing. And, if a prospect says, “Hey, I’d sit in my car for that song, too,” you’ll have established a bit of commonality.

Building on that concept, think about personal interests likely to connect you with your customers. Sell golf products? Talk about your interest in golf, how you got started, and perhaps some personal struggles with the game. It’s probably risky to include personal items that could distance you from your customers – having an interest in racing is great, particularly if you are selling automotive performance products, but including a video of you doing hot laps at the Nürburgring in your Lamborghini might be off-putting.

Often your personal interests won’t relate directly to your business or have a high degree of overlap with your customers. That’s still fine – including this information will humanize you and make you more likable.

Case Study: PetRelocation.comHere’s an example of a company that gets a lot of things right on its About Us page. PetRelocation.comis an Austin-based firm that helps pet owners around the globe move their pets from place to place and across international borders. What are the likely characteristics of their customers? Obviously,

They own at least one animal, probably a dog or cat.

They care about their pet enough to go through the expense of moving it to a distant location.

These characteristics establish an immediate premise for “group membership,” and the PetRelocation About Us page takes advantage of that. First, they include an extensive listing of their staff, not just a few executives. If you talk to someone at the firm, you can probably find their photo and their story on this page.

Second, even though the bios for each person are short, they all emphasize their love of pets. CEO Kevin O’Brien’s mentions his early start in “doggie daycare” and that he lives with “a whole bunch of dogs and cats.” CFO Angie O’Brien’s bio talks about a three-hour drive with a talking parrot that wouldn’t shut up. First employee Matt Kincaid’s bio, in keeping with Cialdini’s recommendation, not only mentions his two dogs but also brings out his guitar playing and music writing.

All of this information tells potential customers of the firm that this isn’t a faceless corporation (would you trust your devoted companion to the loving care of United Airlines?), but a group of real people who have real lives and love their animals. This humanizes the company, increases liking, and builds confidence that the firm actually cares about the pets entrusted to them.

Is It Perfect? PetRelocation.com’s About Us page serves the firm better than nine out of ten About Us pages. There’s no boring corporate history and no bland, generic mission statement. There are no lengthy resumes of guys in suits sporting impressive Ivy League degrees.

But, tinkerer that I am, I could suggest a few improvements.

At the risk of making the page longer, I’d use images that match the content. Instead of small, avatar-like head shots, I’d include larger photos showing not just the staffer but his/her pets. This would be a powerful visual statement to underscore what the text says: these are people who actually have pets, and really love animals. Not every visitor is going to read the words, but even a quick glance at the pet-laden photos will convey the message.

As an alternative, or even an addition, I’d consider a group photo of staff members with lots of their pets. I’m sure it would be chaotic to set up, but done right it would send a strong message of common ground with potential customers.

I’d also edit the text be sure each pet is named. If someone has six dogs, list their names and breeds. This will emphasize the “pets are individuals” message. And, when a potential client spots a fellow Golden Lab or Siamese owner, the bond will be even stronger.

Including more short stories, like the backseat-driving parrot, would further engage the readers.

Will this increase the text on the page? Absolutely. But, I’d bet that it will be more interesting and get read even more. Ultimately, some or all staff members might merit a short individual page to incorporate one or more photos with pets and a pet story or two.

No Personal/Business Overlap? Some businesses can more easily find common ground with their customers than others. For example, what if you make machine parts or are a productivity consultant? That makes things a bit more difficult. You can try to find some common ground, like, “Bill has always been fanatical about doing things as efficiently as possible. He installed a heated mirror in his shower so he could shave while showering, and has been known to jot down ideas on the tile with a grease pencil.” But, I’d be careful not to stretch this to the point of implausibility.

As Cialdini suggested, just include some things that make you human and likable. His “driveway songs” clearly have nothing to do with business, but can still serve that purpose. So, mention something you are enthusiastic about.

You should include sufficient depth to engage the reader a little. I don’t think “Roberta likes cats, chocolate, and caffeine” is enough to get the job done. You don’t need to include paragraphs of irrelevant information, but give the reader enough information about your topic to develop a connection.

Does Personal Info Boost Conversion? Cialdini cited one study that had pairs of participants conduct a negotiation by email. Nearly a third of the negotiations failed because the parties couldn’t reach an agreement. When the negotiators first exchanged a few personal details by email prior to the negotiation, though, the failure rate dropped to a mere 6%. While that’s not a perfect analog to a better About Us page, it certainly confirms that appearing more three-dimensional and human to another party can increase the chance of success.

Your Turn Does your About Us page say enough about YOU? Have you encountered a great About Us page that separates the company from its similar competitors? Share your thoughts in a comment!

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So we’d better put our human faces on there? Oh. For me personally, I like the avatars. I’ve grown up interacting with avatars & nicknames, so I care less about the face behind someone’s work/product/forumpostings/.. . Maybe we should let them switch to the humans on mouse rollover, but that then needs another approach for mobile/tablet.

Just a little bit of Social Psychology goes a long way. We forget that people aren’t transformed by numbers, data, and pie charts. People are moved by stories, even if it’s just a hint of a story that starts a thought process.

Reference the newest set of Verizon LTE commercials where they show graphs of data to a group of people and supposedly get candid reactions. If the charts were the important part they would just put the graph on the screen for the TV viewer. The influence comes in is seeing people just LIKE US react to the graphs. That’s why they show us other people reacting to the graph AND the graph itself.

I absolutely love Cialdini. He’s a master of persuasion. This week I’m actually finishing up a 7 part series on my companies blog relating Cialdini’s Principles of Persuasion to Branding. A huge influence on my thinking as well. Thanks for the article.

Interesting parallel to the Verizon ads, Ben. The more we feel similar to the people portrayed, the more likely they are to be effective. Cialdini’s work has been out there for decades, but it’s surprising how often it’s ignored.